Ted Strickland Continues To Refuse To Debate His Primary Opponent

After stonewalling the press on his policy stances, Strickland continues to stonewall the voters of Ohio by refusing to debate his primary opponent.

WCOPO-TV and WXVU of Cincinnati have asked Strickland and Sittenfeld to participate in a televised debate. Sittenfeld agreed to the debate, but as WVXU reported, Strickland refused to participate, dismissing the concept of participating in an open exchange on the issues as a “distraction”:

Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV, and WXVU, have asked the campaigns to participate in a televised debate, at a site and in a format to be agreed upon by the two campaigns.

Sittenfeld, who is by every conceivable measure the underdog in this contest, said yes, yes, and yes.

…

In a telephone interview with WVXU Friday, Strickland made one thing clear – there will be no debates with Sittenfeld.

“This primary is going to be over in a relatively short period of time,” Strickland said. “I intend to focus my attention, my time, on Rob Portman.

“I am not going to allow myself to be distracted by anything like that,” Strickland said of the idea of debating Sittenfeld.

And what if more media outlets try to set up debates with Strickland?

“We would respond the same way today if we got the same request from a different outlet,” Bergstein said.

The dodging by Strickland has gotten so bad, that the Sittenfeld campaign is holding up Hillary Clinton, the same Hillary Clinton that has been universallypanned for dodging debates that take place at times that people will actually watch, as an example of a candidate more open to debating than Strickland:

“My question to the Strickland campaign is simple,’’ said Dale Butland, a spokesman for the Sittenfeld campaign. “Gov. Strickland is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton has agreed to no less than six debates with her opponents, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. If Hillary Clinton can face her opponents, why can’t Ted Strickland?”